Low carb diets might of been really popular a few years ago, but the sluggishness and mood swings that they created left people feeling a bit less optimistic about the new wonder diet. However low carb diets really did work! So how do you take the advantages of the effective low carb diet? Enter carb cycling.

Carb Cycling
The concept of carb cycling is pretty simple. You eat a low carb diet for a few days followed by a normal carb diet for a few more days. Throw in a high carb day once a week (a cheat day) and you got carb cycling.

Typical Carb Cycle
A common cycle will include two low carb days, followed by a normal day and then repeat. Once a week we will throw in a high carb day which is our “cheat day”. The amount of carbs you eat will vary from person to person. For an average person low days will usually be less than 100 carbs where a normal day would be around 250 carbs.

When to use Carb Cycling
My experience with carb cycling is only use it when you are dropping those last 20 – 15 pounds. I use it at the joefitness gym as a diet plateau buster! One thing to remember is if you have more then 30 pounds to lose, simply eating a healthier diet will help you more then anything.

Low carb diets are certainly effective. With carb cycling you can take advantage of awesome low carb diet results without feeling sluggish!

It depends. I have clients that are in what I call “last five pounds” phase where the carbs are pretty low and the cycles are a little intense. I wouldn’t have them maintain that diet for more then a few weeks. However, I do have some that use carb cycling as a lifestyle. It pretty much turns into low carb during the weekdays and normal carbs on the weekends. Thanks for the comment!

Hi! I’m going to try to consistently carb cycle, and was wondering how I would schedule my carb cycling with respect to my resistance training workouts? I do heavy resistance training Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. So if I do normal carb (~100g) days M,W,F and low carb (<30g) Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, do you think I would effectively burn fat while building muscle? Also if I stick to this well, how many pounds of pure fat should I lose in 2 weeks?

On your heavy days I would make sure you’re carb loaded, meaning the previous 24 hours you have had adequate carbs. On your non-heavy days can be your low/no carbs days, I would do a carb depletion workout which is pretty much circuit/interval/tabata work.

I have already lost 150 lbs have 10 more to go and keep loosing the same 5 over and over again. I work out ever day hard with weights and cardio I’m 57 and weigh 150 lbs and have built a lot of muscle were should my calorie level be at, thank u for this post

You mentioned the number of carbs to have on your sample menu, but What should the calories be on a low carb and on a normal carb day? Or does it not matter what the calories are? I have seen some websites where it appears they are cycling calories as well as carbs. Is that the same as what you are recommending?

I try to shoot for the same amount of calories. I tend to increase the amount of fat to replace the lost calories from the carbs. This seems to help with the “hunger” feeling some get when they eat low carb. Thanks!